Madison and Jefferson

Written by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg

Format: Hardcover, 848 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: September 28, 2010
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6728-2 (1-4000-6728-6)

In Madison and Jefferson, esteemed historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg join forces to reveal the crucial partnership of two extraordinary founders, creating a superb dual biography that is a thrilling and unprecedented account of early America.

The third and fourth presidents have long been considered proper and noble gentlemen, with Thomas... Read more >

Decision Points

Written by George W. Bush

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: October 18, 2011
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-59063-3 (0-307-59063-1)

The presidency of George W. Bush continues to be debated by historians, political scientists, scholars, and students alike. Two scholars at Princeton University, Sean Wilentz and Julian E. Zelizer, recently conducted a course on Teaching ‘W’, and discovered that academics should reconsider updating their approach to teaching history by incorporating more... Read more >

Decision Points

Written by George W. Bush

Format: Hardcover, 512 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: November 9, 2010
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-59061-9 (0-307-59061-5)

The presidency of George W. Bush continues to be debated by historians, political scientists, scholars, and students alike. Two scholars at Princeton University, Sean Wilentz and Julian E. Zelizer, recently conducted a course on Teaching ‘W’, and discovered that academics should reconsider updating their approach to teaching history by incorporating more... Read more >

Our Town
A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America
Written by Cynthia Carr

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: March 27, 2007
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-34188-4 (0-307-34188-7)

The brutal lynching of two young black men in Marion, Indiana, on August 7, 1930, cast a shadow over the town that still lingers; but is only one event in the long and complicated history of race relations in Marion, a history much ignored and considered by many to be best... Read more >

They Take Our Jobs!
And 20 Other Myths about Immigration
Written by Aviva Chomsky

Format: Trade Paperback, 264 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 1, 2007
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-4156-7 (0-8070-4156-4)

Claims that immigrants take Americans’ jobs, are a drain on the American economy, contribute to poverty and inequality, destroy the social fabric, challenge American identity, and contribute to a host of social ills by their very existence are openly discussed and debated at all levels of society. Chomsky dismantles twenty of... Read more >

9-11
Was There an Alternative?
Written by Noam Chomsky

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: August 30, 2011
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-60980-343-8 (1-60980-343-4)

In 9-11, published in November 2001 and arguably the single most influential post 9-11 book, internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky bridged the information gap around the World Trade Center attacks, cutting through the tangle of political opportunism, expedient patriotism, and general conformity that choked off American discourse in the months immediately... Read more >

The Separation of Church and State
Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by America's Founders
Edited by Forrest Church

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: May 3, 2011
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7747-4 (0-8070-7747-X)

Now in paperback, a primer of essential writings about one of the cornerstones of our democracy by the original authors of the Constitution, edited by preeminant liberal theologian Forrest Church.

Americans will never stop debating the question of church-state separation, and such debates invariably lead back to the nation’s beginnings and the... Read more >

The Vast Unknown
America's First Ascent of Everest
Written by Broughton Coburn

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: April 30, 2013
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-88714-6 (0-307-88714-6)

By the author of the New York Times bestselling Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, this chronicle of the iconic first American expedition to Mt. Everest in May 1963 – published to coincide with the climb's 50th anniversary­ – combines riveting adventure, a perceptive analysis of its dark and terrifying historical context, and... Read more >

Pass in Review
An Illustrated History of West Point Cadets: 1794-Present
Written by Clyde Cocke
Illustrated by Eilene Moore

Format: Hardcover, 192 pages
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
On Sale: March 20, 2012
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-84908-558-8 (1-84908-558-7)

Established in 1802, the United States Military Academy at West Point is the oldest of the United States’ service academies. Since the nearly 210 years of its existence, literally thousands of cadets have graced its halls. West Point has long been a leader in establishing traditions that have crept not only... Read more >

Eyewitness to America
500 Years of American History in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happen
Edited by David Colbert

Format: Trade Paperback, 720 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 28, 1998
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76724-4 (0-679-76724-X)

Three hundred eyewitnesses--some famous, some anonymous--give their personal accounts of the great moments that make up our past, from Columbus to cyberspace, and infuse them with a freshness and urgency no textbook can duplicate. David Colbert has brought together a multitude of voices to create a singularly rich American narrative.  Here are... Read more >

National Geographic History Book
An Interactive Journey
Written by Marcus Cowper

Format: Hardcover, 184 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: October 18, 2011
Price: $40.00
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0679-5 (1-4262-0679-8)

You won’t find dusty topics and long-dead heroes and villains in the National Geographic History Book. Turn the pages and you’ll find documents, letters, journals, telegrams, posters, and artworks that you can literally pull out and examine. See for yourself, with the primary source materials that history buffs love, what really... Read more >

Military Mayhem
2,500 Years of Soldierly Sleaze and Scandal
Written by Terry Crowdy

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
On Sale: September 21, 2010
Price: $12.00
ISBN: 978-1-84908-147-4 (1-84908-147-6)

Bungled cover-ups, acts of blinding incompetence, miscarriages of justice, sexual escapades, and downright stupidity - scandals have helped to make the world’s armed forces the much loved institutions they are today. Take a look at the public outcries that both governments and soldiers would rather we forgot. From Julius Caesar’s sex... Read more >

The Korean War
A History
Written by Bruce Cumings

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: July 12, 2011
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7896-4 (0-8129-7896-X)

A bracing account of a war that lingers in our collective memory as both ambiguous and unjustly ignored.

For Americans, it was a discrete conflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean War was a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events. With access to new evidence... Read more >

Ten Tea Parties
Patriotic Protests That History Forgot
Written by Joseph Cummins

Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books
On Sale: January 17, 2012
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-59474-560-7 (1-59474-560-9)

Every kid knows the story of 1773’s Boston Tea Party, in which colonists ambushed three British ships and dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. But do you know the story of the New Jersey Tea Party (December 1773)? How about the Annapolis Tea Party (October 1774) or the Charleston... Read more >

Democracy in America, Vol. 1

Written by Alexis De Tocqueville

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 11, 1990
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-72825-2 (0-679-72825-2)

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States to investigate the country’s prison system. Instead, he wrote this study of democracy in its infancy—a study that embraces America’s history, geography, politics, legal system, economy, and culture. Here are glimpses of a vanished America, from town meetings in New England... Read more >

How Capitalism Saved America
The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present
Written by Thomas DiLorenzo

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: August 23, 2005
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-8331-2 (1-4000-8331-1)

In How Capitalism Saved America. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics, demonstrates how capitalism has made America the most prosperous nation on earth—and how the sort of government regulation that politicians and pundits endorse has hindered economic growth, caused higher unemployment, raised prices, and created many other problems. He propels the reader... Read more >

The Birth of Venus
A Novel
Written by Sarah Dunant

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: November 30, 2004
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-6897-2 (0-8129-6897-2)

2005 BOOK SENSE BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD, ADULT NON-FICTION

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a... Read more >

Transgender Warriors
Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman
Written by Leslie Feinberg

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 30, 1997
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7941-6 (0-8070-7941-3)

With a New Afterword by the Author

In this fascinating, personal journey through history, Leslie Feinberg uncovers persuasive evidence that there have always been people who crossed the cultural boundaries of gender. Transgender Warriors is an eye-opening jaunt through the history of gender expression and a powerful testament to the rebellious spirit.

“Activist... Read more >

The Oxford Project

Text by Stephen G. Bloom
Photographed by Peter Feldstein

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Welcome Books
On Sale: September 28, 2010
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-59962-087-9 (1-59962-087-1)

The Alex-award winning The Oxford Project is back in an abridged paperback edition. Less expensive, more portable, and retaining all the drama of this extraordinary true tale of a seemingly ordinary Midwestern town through the pictures and words its residents. Equal parts art, American history, cultural anthropology, and human narrative -... Read more >

The Americas
A Hemispheric History
Written by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: January 17, 2006
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7554-3 (0-8129-7554-5)

NOW IN PAPERBACK

In this groundbreaking work, leading historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto tells the story of our hemisphere as a whole, showing why it is impossible to understand North, Central, and South America in isolation without turning to the intertwining forces that shape the region. With imagination, thematic breadth, and his trademark wit... Read more >

The Constitution of the United States of America

Illustrated by Sam Fink

Format: Hardcover, 136 pages
Publisher: Welcome Books
On Sale: August 31, 2010
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-59962-082-4 (1-59962-082-0)

The Constitution of the United States of America, inscribed and illustrated by the master calligrapher, Sam Fink, brings to life the issues underlying the triumphs of this abiding document. Originally published in pen and ink in 1987, Mr. Fink has gone back to his original black-and-white art and painted it anew... Read more >

At First Sight
Photography and the Smithsonian
Written by Merry A. Foresta

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: October 17, 2004
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-180-8 (1-58834-180-1)

The Smithsonian holds more than 13 million images spanning over 150 years of taking and collecting photographs. This largely unknown body of photography (most never before published) represents nothing less than the Smithsonian’s effort, in the name of all Americans, to describe and comprehend the world. Open anywhere in these pages... Read more >

Everyday Heroes
50 Americans Changing the World One Nonprofit at a Time
Written by Katrina Fried
Photographed by Paul Mobley

Format: Hardcover, 224 pages
Publisher: Welcome Books
On Sale: October 23, 2012
Price: $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-59962-112-8 (1-59962-112-6)

American Heroes: Everyday People Changing the World is a groundbreaking visual book introducing the stories and causes of 50 courageous individuals who have made an astonishing difference in the lives of others. From environmental activists who have rallied the support of hundreds of volunteers to bring such necessities as clean drinking... Read more >

State vs. Defense
The Battle to Define America's Empire
Written by Stephen Glain

Format: Hardcover, 496 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: August 2, 2011
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-40841-9 (0-307-40841-8)

A masterful account of how sixty years of American militarism created the Cold War, fanned decades of unnecessary conflict, helped to fuel Islamist terror, and threatens to bankrupt the country.

For most of the twentieth century, the sword has led before the olive branch in American foreign policy. In eye-opening fashion, State... Read more >

Best Addresses
A Century of Washington's Distinguished Apartment Houses
Written by James M. Goode

Format: Hardcover, 597 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: April 17, 2003
Price: $65.00
ISBN: 978-0-87474-476-7 (0-87474-476-8)

A century ago, the popularity of early Washington landmarks like Stoneleigh Court and the controversial Cairo (which, at a soaring twelve stories, shocked District officials into enacting the city’s height limit) made it clear that apartment living was here to stay. By the 1920s, Beaux Art and Art Deco palaces offered... Read more >